Everybody is talking about data from social media sources and the opportunities for businesses it brings, if one knows how to use it. But how, is the question often asked. And – do we really have to?
This year, NEXT Conference in Berlin had Data as its main topic, and in various sessions it was discussed how important data nowadays is for businesses. In autumn there will be the Research & Results in Munich where mostly market researchers come together to discuss the new challenges that collecting data from social media sources brings.
Recently I chatted with someone in classic market research about this, and it became evident that especially data from Facebook, Twitter and Blogs become increasingly important for that area.
Why is data from blogs and social media platforms increasingly important?
Blogs, Twitter and Facebook are only some examples of the platforms (see Ethority’s social media prism to the right) where consumers are and exchange their views with their friends as well as with the entire community. So everybody running a business knows that one has to be where ones customers are, in order to understand their needs, develop the products they want and most importantly – sell these products as well as offering great customer service.
But one does not only need to be present where ones customers are. One also wants to listen to what they have to say in general.
The competition is on – how popular is my product in comparison to others? Do people love my brand or do they hate it? Did they ever hear about it? Only who knows that can really optimise their products and services, find their niche, get the most out of it – and even come up with new innovative ideas for products and services, knowing the potential benefits they bring to ones customers. Maybe one would even need to find new customer groups?
Then, of course the big question is, how on Earth do I find out what’s been said about me or my brand(s)?
There are a lot of media monitoring services around – and the often quoted dilemma is that there is no service that satisfies all needs and wishes. Well, I guess that’s why there are that many around in the first place. Some of them are either specialised in a certain niche, like i.e. media monitoring for the finance or the travel sector, or they simply try to develop their services to be the best all-round solution and compete with each other that way.
Regardless which way media monitoring companies choose, we at Twingly can deliver blog data to all of them.
In fact, we get quite a few requests about our blog data and the number of our data customers more than doubled during the last 12 months. These are all our API Customers , as we call them.
So let us tell you a bit more about how we could potentially support your media monitoring business with our blog data!
We actually have 3 API’s.
Number 1: Livefeed – This is raw blog data at its finest.
You get all blog data as an XML-feed at the same time as when it enters our system. You can then save the data at your end, and perform the analysis you want to do. You subscribe per language and we give you access via an API-key. Livefeed is mostly used by our bigger clients such as Radian6 and Meltwater Buzz, who then feed our blog data into their system as additional sources.
Number 2: Analytics – 0ur search-API.
This API is based on our blog search – here you can just throw a bunch of keywords into the search interface and get results across all languages (or just specific ones) and that up to 4 months back in history. Twingly Analytics is suitable for media monitoring services that don’t want to deal with the super-technical side of things but that actually want to get results for certain keywords directly out of the pool of blog data. The results come as an XML-feed and can then be used for further analysis on their own system. Silobreaker’s services are a good example for using our search API in order to find additional sources in blogs about certain topics – for example their news trends.
Number 3: RSS-API – the best of basic!
You probably know that you can search on Twingly.com for a certain keyword (i.e. Twingly as a brand) and that you can subscribe to the results via RSS for free? Now, some of you might want to use this feed commercially and at a higher volume. Then you can get an API-key from us which allows you, against a low monthly fee, to use this feed for your purposes. That can be media monitoring, but you could also use it to create a customised top list of blogs that talk about your products. The Swedish publisher Norstedts created a top list of blogged about books that they choose by using the RSS-API.
Now, if you want to know more about any of these feeds and their technique, you can either contact us or you are welcome to check out our FAQ and get back to us with specific questions.
P.S.:
A bit earlier this year, we presented some of our customers, including interviews with Silobreaker and Radian6.
If you are from Sweden and looking for some companies that do media monitoring, then you might want to check out Mediebevakare.se as well, where a lot of Swedish media monitoring companies present their tools and services.
We at Twingly founded Mediebevakare.se, because like you we felt that an overview of all the different media monitoring services available is needed . So please check it out and spread the word if you know someone who is looking for a service, or if you know a tool that should be listed as well.
If you have a media monitoring business on the Swedish market but you are not based here, feel free to set up your presentation on Mediebevakare anyway. We can help you if needed – just let us know!
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